Norman D. Dicks: “I yield to the gentleman from Ohio. Mr. LaTOURETTE. I thank the distinguished ranking member very much; and, you know…”

“I yield to the gentleman from Ohio. Mr. LaTOURETTE. I thank the distinguished ranking member very much; and, you know, Mr. Harris from Maryland is a wonderful new Member, and I enjoyed his remarks very much and his passion, and it would be a compelling argument if his facts were correct. The difficulty is no one on this floor would support project labor agreements if the evidence was that project labor agreements increased the cost of a construction project by 10 to 20 percent. The study cited by Mr. Culberson, the chairman of the Subcommittee, by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, concluded that the effect of PLAs on construction costs was strongly influenced by the degree of unionization in an area. In highly unionized cities, the costs of a PLA are less and the project comes in under cost, under time, better quality. And those that don't have, as apparently the First District of Maryland doesn't have as many unions, the evidence does, in fact, come in; in some of those cases costs can increase by 5 to 9 percent, not 10 to 20. But the problem with this language is, it doesn't condemn project labor agreements. This is an appropriations bill. What this amendment does is deprive the agency of the funds to study in your area--my area happens to be heavily unionized, so Cleveland, Ohio--prevents the VA from studying whether or not use of the PLA would save the government money or cost the government money.…”